//------------------------------// // Just some fun // Story: The Arising Cartoon Pony // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// Nintendo Land realms innate abilities: Touch screen powers, nothing that happens is actually lethal here since everyone’s a technical immortal until they leave. They had been through so many realms, from Fourside City to beyond the bounds of any normalcy that may have existed on a really dull world. Nintendo Land was rather tame in comparison to everything they’ve seen. They had all just dropped onto the outer edge of a large circular area. A screen with one arm coming from below it wearing a quirky little hat floated down before the group. The group consisted of a bear, a bird, a giant humanoid bee, three ponies and one purple rabbit like creature called a mimiga. Mimiga’s were cute and mostly innocent, they were highly allergic to red flowers so don’t feed them any without an Esuna spell or a potion that can cure berserk on hand. “Welcome to Nintendo Land my name is Monita and I will be your guide, if you need me for guidance just mental tap the tower screen. Also for those of you who are capable of getting hungry, we have a food court down the staircase in the central tower which is not accessible by player controlled characters. Enjoy your stay and if you would like to stay a while there are hotel rooms for nominal prices run by toads below the food court.” “Okay we’re splitting off into pairs and meeting in the food court for lunch, Screwball is of course with me. About time I got some one on one with my daughter. Banjo you’re with Honey, go do whatever a bear and his buxom wasp companion are supposed to do and hopefully I don’t have to hear about it later. Derpy you’re keeping track of Spoony. So are we all set?” There was a tug on Kazooie’s tail feather and she looked to the purple bunny creature wearing a cute sweater. “Yes?” “I know I’m being a bit of a bother, but who am I paired up with?” The rabbit creature was waiting for a response, there was a red ribbon tied around one of her ears. Kazooie knew who she was talking to the minute she looked in the rabbit’s general direction. “Your Chaco right, how did you even end up here with us anyway? I don’t remember you being a part of the group with us, especially when I and my friends left Spiral Mountain.” After a moment to considering Kazooie’s words and rubbing one of her long ears with a hand shaped paw Chaco simply shrugged. “I don’t know, I think I might be a bit lost. Do you know where my Mr. and Mrs. Traveler are?” Ever so slowly Kazooie slapped her face at Chaco’s innocent question. With a wing she breathed in deeply and then let it loose slowly in a sigh, before pulling out her Plot Device and calling up someone. “Yeah, hello, Curly Brace, I think I found a missing rabbit creature your familiar with. Yeah she’s okay, she’s a bit lost and I think she might be exploring around because she was lonely without you two to hug. Yeah, I would say you guys are the teddy bears in this relationship. The Nintendo Land realm, you can’t miss it as there are very few Wii U realms available. Okay, I’ll watch her until you guys get here, until then me and my daughter will take her along to explore the realm. There’s nothing dangerous here you know, this theme park is pretty darn safe in comparison to Rockets Whoopie World. Okay then.” After that Kazooie put away her plot device. “You’re stuck with us I guess, stick close by but don’t interrupt our mother daughter bonding time okay? I’m expected to come up with a plan to save a cartoon world soon and I’d rather relax until then.” Screwball smiled and said hello to Chaco, things were going to be alright and she’s already making a new friend. “So what would you like to do first Screwball? We can explore the central area with all the information about things we’ll see in the surrounding attractions, ride the party train or go into one of the attractions.” It was up to Screwball to decide what they do first and no matter what Kazooie would make sure they simply had fun. Screwball wanted to look at the big statute things and hear the information about them; she moved over to one and gave it a mental tap. It stood up and roared in her face blowing her mane back, knocking her hat off. Kazooie deftly lifted her left wing and caught the hat as Screwball fell over onto her back giggling as the information came up. Chaco just tilted her head at the scene and stifled a giggle into her paws at how silly Screwball’s mane looked before it returned to normal. “Bulborb, with its sharp teeth and devastating roll attack, this is a foe to fear. I highly advise you take caution if you don’t want to be crushed into scrap metal.” It was Monita’s voice again yet it just appeared in text box format in front of Screwball. In the background the others were on the train circling the theme park and it took off to the sky, they would be playing some team based party games for a while. Screwball moved over to the objects sitting next to the bulborb thing and tapped one; it shattered in a volatile manner and soon reformed itself with Monita intoning it was an old pot. Smiling tapping the other objects they too shattered into a hundred pieces and just as quickly reformed. After a while of just randomly browsing the objects around the park and laughing at the funny face the Deku Tree made, Screwball had finally wanted to try an attraction it was still early in the day and they had all the time in the world. Speaking of worlds the entire place was like a giant bubble. The four colored ribbon circled the large floating platform they were standing on, there were cute heart shaped clouds in the sky, the background music was a quaint cheery tune and all the floating cubes, spheres and stars made this place a naturally entrancing wonder. Looking up at the words ‘Balloon Trip breeze, float with the wind’ Screwball pointed at it, she wanted to try this because it looked interesting. “Well okay then.” Kazooie led them into the corridor that appeared as they walked through the gateway that had been invisible until now. “This is a one player game, which of you will be the gamer? Support functions can be carried out by extra helpers if they so choose or they can watch the action.” Screwball threw her hoof up in the air and she pulled forward and a orange and blue suit appeared around her body, along with two large red balloons that tied themselves to her back. She quickly disappeared to somewhere else. Looking around Screwball was standing on a grassy platform with a small building and there was a bell hanging above her. “Screwy do you need a tutorial? Nod and I’ll get Monita to give you a run down on how to fly here, just know we’re going to help support you against the enemies you’ll encounter here, also try to beat the high score it’s nine hundred and nine.” Kazooie’s voice asked, after a nod Screwball was put through a quick tutorial by Monita where she learned to control the breeze and fly around on the two balloons to collect other balloons. It all started simply at first and then became absurdly challenging with each passing scene transition to another level of game play, electrified spikes, balloon birds attacking her and nearly getting snacked on by a big fish. Screwball loved every moment of it though and she saw a red or purple glow destroying things or stopping the enemy from moving. Soon Screwball managed to progress to the second night in the game, before she lost all her extra live and her balloons were popped for the final time. She fell into a large mechanical fish and was back with Chaco and Kazooie in the next instant. She pointed to Kazooie with her left hoof and asked her which attraction she wanted to see next. “Me well… I never really gave it much thought… but it better have something with bombs in it.” Walking out of the corridor Kazooie spotted something that caught her immediate interest to her right. She took Screwballs hoof and Chaco’s paw and flicked her beak and they were suddenly flying across the park to land in front of another attraction. “Okay this definitely seems more my speed. This is Takamaru’s Ninja Castle, throwing star showdown huh?” Kazooie walked into the appearing corridor with a slight smirk on her beak, projectile spamming here she comes ala Touhou! Despite their apprehension they did like the samurai costumes, Chaco and Screwball followed Kazooie in just staring at her black shogun armor mutely. After a quick tutorial on how to fire and reload, fifty ninja stars were given to Kazooie who gave a pointedly evil smirk. The cardboard ninja characters were cute and had ridiculous goofy eyes some of which were holding weapons. They would have attacked, if Kazooie didn’t cut them down the second they appeared and she was really darn accurate. Every now and think a pink and purple glow would stop an enemy from moving and Kazooie usually nailed those enemy ninja with four or five stars aimed below the belt. The only enemies to survive even a second under the mass barrage of ninja stars filling the area at any given time were the ones with swords who could block the constant stream of death that was Kazooie’s nigh impossible accuracy. Whenever the sword wielders went to attack, a quick parry from Kazooie’s beak and they were suddenly punctured by at least seven throwing stars before anyone could so much as blink. When they reached the boss fight Kazooie had yet to miss a single ninja, Chaco had to comment that this was an incredible sight. Kazooie had been performing reloads almost every five seconds or so up to this point. The boss was almost done as most of it went up in smoke under a pile of bombs as Kazooie bothered to finally use the scrolls she earned while being a ninja star launching machine. Now all Kazooie was waiting on was for it to open its big mouth and it only took upon the third opening for Kazooie to finish the game. Screwball gave a shout of joy as nobody was ever going to beat that kind of performance, Chaco was just happy that she got to be helpful. It was the usual problem that many NPC’s didn’t want to feel useless or helpless. “You’re right this was a combined victory, but the boss was all me and my love of explosives.” In fact Kazooie had blown five scrolls worth of explosives on the boss. “I guess to be fair we should allow Chaco to choose a game to play next.” “Oh no, I really wouldn’t want to impose, I am having a grand old time anyway and …” Both Kazooie and Screwball were looking at Chaco now; both of them had differing angry expressions and this caused Chaco to pause. Kazooie was angry she wasn’t more willing to explore her horizons, Screwball was upset that Chaco didn’t want a fair turn as she was part of their group. “I guess I could choose one… that one seems to resonate with me.” Chaco pointed out the sign with an octopus face and they launched to the location with a tap, the sign read ‘Octopus Dance’. “So an Ikachan reference was made!” Kazooie proclaimed loudly much to Chaco and Screwballs confusion. “Don’t worry, some reader might get it, this is after all almost the end of the story and the major events have already passed. By the way the next chapter is the last one; finally I can take six and drink myself into a stupor when this is all over with until the real sequel to The Dreaded Love Bird.” “Um… do you have a pair of pompoms?” Chaco asked nicely ignoring the current inexistence of the fourth wall. A pair of purple pompoms was produced posthumously out of Kazooie’s pack without pause. “Thank you.” Chaco said happily and ran into the corridor. “I wonder how Spiral Mountain is doing. Hopefully Bad Girl and those ants aren’t burning our home down in some zany manner. I’d have to kick their asses for that if they are currently doing that right now.” Kazooie stared to a single point off to the side expectantly waiting for the cutaway gag and Screwball sat next to her staring at the same point. Meanwhile, at Spiral Mountain things were looking rather normal. “Got any three’s?” Bad Girl asked as she was playing cards with the three present Mizar Ants. Now we are returning to Nintendo Land and our story at hand. “Well that was a boring cutaway sequence.” It was, even the text knows it as much as Kazooie did. She decided to see how Chaco was doing at Octopus Dancing. Screwball shrugged and followed, she was expecting something more interesting from someone as volatile and far more vulgar than even her mother was. When they entered and saw the platform Chaco was standing on she was well into the fourth round and doing pretty well only having missed one or two rounds and did just good on a few of them. Some of the dance moves she was using seemed kind of provocative especially the jump splits, but she was currently just a peppy rabbit lady that was just enjoying herself. Mimiga weren’t exactly known for anything beyond their recreational abilities and gardening skills, Chaco failed just shy of completing the fifth dance course at the seventh part, then the octopus grabbed her. Chaco was deposited next to Kazooie and Screwball who held up signs, a six point nine from the bird with the cheeky grin and an eight point eight from the smiling pony. Looking at Kazooie’s sign Chaco blushed violently turning her fur a nice plum color before she turned to the pony’s and gave it a questioning look. “Why did you give me more points? I understand her sign is at least a joke and a very crude one it is I’ll have you know. You really shouldn’t do things like that Kazooie.” A joke Chaco wasn’t about to tell anyone about especially not to her two special friends that she happened to love. “As for you, I think you’re giving me way too much credit.” Screwball exclaimed she gave extra points for effort and having a good time. “You would do that wouldn’t you?” Kazooie stated rhetorically. “You forgot to account for friendship points by the way.” Screwball put her sign down and when she held it up it up again it read nine and five sevenths. “Um… okay… can we do something that’s a little more team oriented?” Ten minutes after Chaco asked that she regretted it ruefully. Ten minutes later Chaco was aiming her flashlight left and right and backed herself into a corner; Screwball was currently hunting down a ghost in this dark spooky mansion. A light flashed and the mansion was filled with light for a single moment showing a ghostly pair of green glowing eyes that caused Chaco to scream and point her flashlight towards the last spot she saw the shade. Chaco shivered hoping it was just her imagination, why did this attraction have to be so scary? She heard a screech, she tried to turn her flashlight to the side but it was too late as the ghost came screaming at her and she had a heart attack almost quite literally. Screwball in a separate part of the mansion was having fun with her mother, this game had teamwork involved and so far it was a two on one, against her mom who was pretty good at being a ghost. Feeling a sudden chill Screwball spun around to her right and started to frantically swing her flashlight down the hallway behind her. After a moment she relaxed, but then a pair of wings quickly wrapped around her in a tight hug. “Boo…” Screwball definitely had a heart attack, but she would laugh about this afterward as she was dragged into the darkness screaming by a ghostly form in a flash of lightning. All three of the fun lovers exited Luigi’s Ghost Mansion attraction, Chaco was slightly pale and Screwball definitely was after her mother’s final jump scare. Even if they were a little frightened the two 'ghost hunters' started laughing about how it went. Looking at the evening sky it was lunch time. Tapping the towers face mentally Kazooie dragged the other two to the tower and opened a door that wasn’t visible to the player and then they went down the spiraling stair case into the food court. Upon arrival they came upon a strange scene. Derpy was looking haggard and Lyra looked excited. “And I had fingers that came with the suit, it was so awesome! There was even a robotic version of that giant red dragon thing Screwball’s mother fought off.” To punctuate her thoughts of the Metroid Blast attraction she threw her hooves up in the air. “So much pain and suffering.” The poor blond pegasus formerly known as Derpy muttered. The ice Ridley creature has earned a lot of her ire just as much as the regular robot Ridley from the last few hours they spent blasting fake space aliens. The table next to them had Banjo and Honey with their own interesting conversation. “I never knew you were that good with a bow… must be all the times you used Kazooie as a living machine gun.” Honey had an arm around Banjo who was blushing sheepishly as the bee hugged him. “Gosh, it certainly wasn’t that much of a difference from the Saucer of Peril or Breegull Blaster mode.” It was as much fun watching Honey swing a sword around in the attraction they visited, but Banjo wasn’t about to admit that he liked watching his favorite bee get violent. After enjoying a lunch with all of her friends and Chaco, Kazooie decided to flip Nintendo Land to its night time visuals and have a floating objects parade. Kazooie and Screwball soon wandered off to another edge of the floating circular theme park to sit down and have a talk. “So Screwball have any questions you want to ask me before I start another adventure? Technically this one ended before ‘Hot Topics’ so all we need is an epilogue that’s shorter then these four thousand word chapters.” Kazooie watched as Screwball turned her head away to stare at the fireworks in the sky, with smile on her face before it turned to a frown. Screwball turned to Kazooie and asked a question she’s always wanted to know the answer to. “Yeah well, you needed someone as you’ve never had parents and I don’t count Discord as being one. I may not be the best mother figure in the world, but trust me when I say I’ll torture someone and let them live if they harm you. I’ve always wanted to have someone to take care of that I could be ridiculously irresponsible around, I mean what mother would allow their daughter to run straight into danger like I do?” After a moment of looking thoughtful Kazooie frowned. “In fact I owe two robot masters horrible agony. Trust me, there are a lot of things far worse than death and I would know. I’m a video game character and have died countless times in really exceedingly dumb ways.” Screwball turned to mother and asked what happened to her when she was killed and turned into that strange creature. “Oh, that… yeah I didn’t know something like that could happen so soon. Let’s just say it wouldn’t have stopped until you either killed those robot masters or everyone there. Good thing the boss field was destroyed the moment your chaos energy took over or else I wouldn’t have saved Spoony.” After a moment Screwball was about to ask something only for Kazooie to preempt it. “I jumped through it with my Wonder Wing. That thing was part of you and you’re chaos powers you get in part from Discord and I readily accept that it is a part of you that’s cranky at the world. As you very well know Discord couldn’t create life from nothing or cause death directly, he could only twist what is already there to begin with.” Screwball just nuzzled against Kazooie and asked the question, then where did she come from? She knew she was made with chaos energy just not where her spark had come from, just that it existed and she was perfectly fine with that even if Kazooie didn’t answer her. She decided to mention her talk with Spekkio. “It doesn’t really matter; you’re your own entity now and can’t be put back there ever since you were hit with the elements of harmony. You know how to do the Scan spell right? Use it on yourself and you’ll know the truth. Word of warning, don’t get discouraged about what information you will see. Remember that I still took you in even knowing that.” Kazooie gently laid her right wing around the pony and rubbed it up and down to comfort the pony about to learn something really weird. Screwball cast the Scan spell on herself remembering it from the first time she saw Kazooie use it on her, she saw whatever it was that her mom had seen. After a moment she smiled and then started laughing, as she snuggled into her mother’s wings. Her mom was right; it didn’t matter. “Every pony in the world of Equestria is special in their own unique way with those butt tattoos of theirs… but you’re just something else aren’t you? You’ll never be able to become an alicorn even with an epiphany like that one, but at least you’ll know you’ll live for a long time. Just watch it with the chaos powers okay?” Kazooie plucked Screwball’s hat from her head, much to her annoyance, to ruffle her mane. “Can’t have my daughter permanently ending all life in the video game realms as we know it, now can we?” Screwball giggled and soon fell into a happy sigh; she wondered if Kazooie had any ice cream on hand as Mr. Cold Spot wasn’t available. “Want some sea salt ice cream, I’ve got an entire warehouse of the stuff in my backpack and it’s not that bad… it’s just not that great either.” After receiving a nod with her left wing Kazooie retrieved some ice cream and proffered it to Screwball who took it and gave it a lick. A wide toothy grin up to her spiraled pupils soon appeared on Screwballs face. “There’s no accounting for any pony’s sense of taste and their love of salt.” “I wish you a happy birthday mom.” Screwball continued to eat her ice cream and Kazooie pulled out her own. Screwball was glad she managed to say all that without a problem rearing up in her speech patterns. “Thanks my little Screwy, so how does it feel to be an arisen cartoon character?” They sat there watching the stars in the sky as the fireworks show had ended. “You’re world only has three so far, two of them the most recent being you and Muffins over there. The last one I had the honor to meet and know personally, her name was Pinkie Diane Pie. She was a strange little filly back then and so full of life, she was the first of you ponies to ever arise as a cartoon outside of your world’s rules. Unlike her you can ignore the rule of funny completely so also be careful with your cartoon abilities.” Screwball already knew who Pinkie was, but why was mom talking about her now? Other then wanting to know that Screwball didn’t feel any different, she was still herself only a bit more worldly. There was that weird sensing ability she recently acquired that allowed her to predict things that were going to happen. “Because, me and the pink cat had a lot of fun like this and now she’s a literal old acquaintance. I’m surprised she can still see me as a good friend despite me being a complete lunatic she definitely remembers me as.” Kazooie felt two hooves wrap around her and she received a sticky ice cream covered face to her beak and a traditional cartoon kiss was performed ending with a requisite pop. “A classic cartoon style kiss, you sure do know how to cheer up a bird. Wipe the ice cream off next time though.” Screwball was happy to just have a mom at all crazy or not and she stated as much; crazy was what she considered normal in context for her. Kazooie just laughed alongside Screwball whose tail was wagging, someone was about to have a happy moment and it wasn’t them as they were in the middle of theirs already. Chaco sat alone. She had to admit it was rather calming for being around mid day and in a realm with a midnight setting. Soon she felt a hand on her left shoulder and then one on her right and before she knew it she was being cuddled by the two people she was waiting for. She was finally where she belonged, between a Quote and a Curly Brace.